Next time you have a hard day, read this

Read this email next time you have a hard day

I’ve been chasing my tail trying to write this email. 

So many false starts. 

So many meandering paragraphs culminating into a big fat nothing. 

The easy way out would be to write you an email about email—like last week’s newsletter about how to update your welcome sequence. (Thank you for all the questions you sent in, btw. Saving those for an upcoming free workshop.) 

But today I want to tell you something truthful because I know you’ll relate.  

Since returning from a terrible vacation* and being couchbound with the flu for eleventy days straight, I’ve been surfing a big wave of “What am I even doing?” and “Does any of it matter?” 

On Friday I drove three hours to ski for an hour and fifteen minutes, trying to shake off my malaise. The next day I took my kids to the pool and doggy paddled among the laughing, healthy children and loving parents wondering to myself, “What’s the point of childhood? It’s like eating dessert first.” As I write these very words I’m listening to Celine Dion sing Where Does My Heart Beat Now?

On repeat.

(Don’t think I can’t see how ridiculous and hilarious this is. Laughing at myself is my main source of joy right now.)

But you know what I’m talking about, dear subscriber. 

You have days like these too, I’m sure of it. For me it started with a bad flu, but sometimes it’s brought on by a night of bad sleep, too many cheeseburgers, or that one social media post that sends you off the deep end. 

Like the trickster it is, your mind turns on you. 

Suddenly it feels like all is lost even though nothing is technically wrong. You’re scared, even though you can turn your head all the way to the left and all the way to the right and plainly see that no one is chasing you. You find yourself gazing at the young men in thick parkas rounding up shopping carts in the parking lot at Costco and think to yourself, “Maybe I should hand in a resume here.” 

You forget how smart you are. 

How capable. 

You forget about all the worthwhile things you’ve done, all the nice things people say about you, the humans who love and care for you no matter what, the gifts you were born with, the unsolvable problems you miraculously found a way to solve, the one hundred and forty-five things you get done in a day but don’t give yourself credit for because they’re just good habits you’ve spent your life cultivating. 

Those kinds of days are inevitable. 

A big part of entrepreneurship is not letting those days pull you under. It’s finding systems for getting through days like that. It’s knowing when to step away and when to push through. It’s knowing who and where to turn for support, and when to sit in the discomfort of not knowing and wait it out. It’s forgiving yourself for throwing money at problems because you didn’t know what else to do, and sitting on your hands was too hard or too uncomfortable. 

It’s being able to observe yourself from 30ft outside of your own mind and say, “You’re just having a moment right now, old boy. Tomorrow will be better.” 

…and actually believing it.

Actually trusting that Past You got you this far, and Future You is more capable than you could possibly imagine.  

No one can teach you how to do this stuff. 

Cultivating those skills takes time. 

(And therapy.)

But one thing I can say for sure is that those days pass. I promise. Darkness can make for very fertile soil—often the most difficult but best thing to do is just lie in it and see if any sprouts emerge.

If you’re reading this email and you’re having a day like that (or a year like that), it’s probably true that you are safe at this moment, even though it doesn’t feel like it.

Tomorrow you’ll feel better. 

Tomorrow you’ll feel like you again. 

Tomorrow you’ll wake up with clear eyes and be able to see a path forward. 

Or the next day, it’s not a perfect science.

But that day is most definitely coming. 

With love + belief ♥️

Tarzan Kalryzian [she/they]
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*Correction: my vacation wasn’t terrible. My kids had a hard time but I loved being on a cruise with those cheeky buggers. There is no one else I’d rather be stuck in a cabin with for five days. They make my heart sing this song all day long.